Surgical staplers, such as those used for vascular anastomosis, often include an anvil against which staples are deformed. As one example, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/054,265, filed on Feb. 9, 2005 (the “'265 application”), which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, described an anastomosis stapler including a staple holder and an anvil, where that anvil is inserted through the wall of a target vessel at or in proximity to the anastomosis site. The distal end of that anvil is blunt, as is typical for such anvils, in order to prevent inadvertent damage to the back wall of the target vessel after the end of the anvil has been inserted through the wall of the target vessel. Before the anvil is inserted through the wall of the target vessel, a small incision is made in the wall of the target vessel with a scalpel. The target vessel may be a coronary artery. The anvil is then inserted through the incision in the wall of the target vessel into the lumen of the target vessel. Because the incision in the wall of the target vessel is small, it can be inconvenient to locate the incision with the end of the anvil and then insert the anvil through the incision. This inconvenience may be compounded when the target vessel is a coronary artery and the anvil is used during beating-heart surgery.
The use of the same reference symbols in different figures indicates similar or identical items.